Necromancer Dreams of Mechs Chapter 25: Chapter 30

Read chapter 25 of Necromancer Dreams of Mechs by Magic on NovelPedia.

Chapter 25: Bone Improvements While I was excited to get going on my march across this new world, it took over two weeks before everything, and everyone, was ready. My current army of undead bones was just over two hundred: thirty wolves, a hundred and fifty human and demi-human remains, four hulking bear-creatures, and thirty-four of the snake people. Bones, Crack, and Chip were still with me, though each of them had been altered by the new skills I’d been grinding like a madman to acquire. “I do think your idea is sound for creating enchanted armor, but not for you to use. Hiding behind your horde is kind of the point of your class, is it not?” Harold asked from on top of the massive palanquin my human and demi-human minions were carrying. The palanquin was… excessive, maybe even ridiculous, but it was mine. I’d built it from the ground up using scavenged bones and sheets of melted-down steel. The base was a heavy platform reinforced with femurs and spine columns, broad enough for thirty undead to shoulder without wobbling. Rising from that was what looked like the frame of a small house, though instead of wood or stone, its walls were layered vertebrae bound together with jagged plates of metal. A skeletal latticework formed the windows, and where most might’ve draped silk curtains, I had dangling chains of teeth, claws, and charms of bone fragments that clicked together with every step. At the rear of the palanquin was my favorite feature: a cramped “courtyard” that I’d filled with my experiments. Bone trees stretched up from the platform, their trunks a spiral of fused ribcages, their branches tipped with blades instead of leaves. They provided a twisted sort of shade, their shadows jagged and uneven, but it made the place feel less like a moving coffin and more like… well, a necromancer’s mobile throne. Inside, there was enough space for Harold to recline smugly, as if he were some emperor being paraded through conquered lands. And in truth, that was probably exactly how he saw himself. There had been no sign of anyone in nearly two months, but we were finally going to see if the rest of the world was still the same. I ignored his jab, hopping up onto the shoulder of my first Bone Walker unit and then dropping down into the hollow cage of its chest. Or, at least, what passed for a chest. From the outside, I’m sure it looked like some nightmarish fusion of necromancy and bad craftsmanship. From the inside, it felt even worse. The ribcage of the troll was bent and twisted to still be big, not fitting around me tightly, the massive bones plated with scraps of metal I’d welded in with my Bone and Metal Manipulation. The ribs were a gleaming white beneath the shining coat of metal, curving around me like prison bars. But this was Bones, and my first true step to my goal of mecha supremacy, Bone Walker, my most loyal creation yet. He wasn’t just a hollow cage of ribs and iron plates; he was alive in the way only an undead could be, but with a sentient mind. His skull, mounted high above mine, had been reshaped with riveted metal along the jawline, giving him a jaw like a serrated guillotine. His eye sockets burned faintly with soul-fire, dim but watchful, and I could feel his attention prickle at the back of my mind whenever I moved. “Comfortable, master?” Bone’s voice rumbled, low and gravelly, vibrating through his sternum around me. He wasn’t truly speaking, not with vocal cords, but with the echo of will and necromancy threaded into his marrow. “Not exactly,” I muttered, shifting to avoid the spike of a rib digging into my side. “But I guess we’ll call it progress.” Bone chuckled, the sound scraping like rocks grinding together. He was proud of this form, and in a way, I was too. His troll skeleton had been rebuilt into something halfway between a knight’s exosuit and a nightmare tank. Metal plating coated his forearms and shins, hammered flat and welded into the bone beneath, with jagged seams that still leaked faint mote